Hans B. F. Mulder – författare

Enterprise ontology is one of the conceptual pillars of enterprise engineering, next to enterprise design and enterprise governance, together accomplishing the goals of intellectual manageability, organisational concinnity and social devotion. By revealing the essence of an enterprise’s organisation, enterprise ontology addresses business processes, data and rules in a fundamental and truly integrated way. In addition, it provides deep insight into and broad overview over complex organisational transformations.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I is an introduction in enterprise engineering and enterprise ontology. Part II explores the theories underlying enterprise ontology, explaining the foundations of each theory, the elaborations in practical methods and techniques, and the relationships with other comparable approaches. Part III presents the practical application of the theories. It includes a comprehensive summary of the DEMO methodology and the DEMO specification language, as well as exercises and applications of DEMO in various business areas. It also features a chapter on combining DEMO with comparable approaches to modelling business processes, data and rules, to the benefit of the latter. This second edition comprises two major improvements, driven by increased theoretical precision and further practical experience with DEMO. One is the clear separation between documents or data sets and the files that carry them, the other one is the re-positioning of the input data in the action rules.

Discussing the theoretical foundations of enterprise ontology and its practical applications in equal measure, this book is the principal textbook in courses on enterprise engineering. Since it unites elements from management science and information systems engineering, it is also relevant to students and professionals in either field.

This textbook explains the fundamentals of Enterprise Design. It emphasizes two separations of concerns when (re)designing enterprises to keep the work intellectually manageable. The first one is between function and construction, thus between the enterprise business and the enterprise organisation. The second one is between the essential model of the organisation (the ontology of the enterprise) and the implementation model. With these two intellectual tools it is possible to conceive and put into effect any change in a manageable and responsible way.

To this end, the book is divided into three parts: Introduction, Theories, and Applications. Part I contains the three introductory chapters. In chapter 1 the reader is introduced to the discipline of Enterprise Engineering, in which a design-oriented view is taken toward organisations. Chapter 2 discusses the often-confused distinction between Enterprise Engineering and Enterprise Architecture, and chapter 3 introduces Enterprise Design as one of the conceptual pillars of Enterprise Engineering. Next, Part II outlines the constituting theories of Enterprise Design. Chapter 4 first provides an overview of all Enterprise Engineering theories and their position in a clarifying framework. Then chapters 5 through 10 contain extended summaries of the theories that underly the notion of Enterprise Design. Every chapter is divided in three parts: foundations, elaborations, and discussions. Eventually, Part III is about the application of the theories. Chapter 11 contains an extensive description of the DEMO (Design and Engineering Methodology for Organisations) methodology, specifically of the DAO method, which guides the (re)design of enterprises. In chapters 12 to 14 exercises are presented and discussed for the use of DEMO to the (re)design of enterprises. These exercises in organisational redesign and digital transformation are particularly suited as course material. In chapter 15, practical applications of DEMO in various industrial areas are reported.

In addition to a solid theoretical presentation of Enterprise Design, this book also contains many exercises and examples of its practical application. This combination makes the book perfectly suited for courses on Enterprise Design and Enterprise Engineering, including DEMO as the principal methodology in Enterprise Engineering.